Shadow Genesis

This topic is about a new mod that is being created by me and my brother, Mario Maniac. Yeah, he is still alive, in case you are in doubt.

First of all, I feel like I should say that this game, like its predecessors, is based in nazis and demons. I understand some of you may not like the idea, but we do. Also, by predecessors, I mean its prequels, all of them. This one is centered in the same story and it involves elements of previous gameses.

If you ever played an addon made by us or heard someone criticizing our style, you probably know how things are going to be developed. We enjoy a challenge, and we also enjoy the fact that this won't be a game that you will be able to finish in a couple hours.

Anyway, we've been working on it for a long time now, although we didn't work that much due to other stuff and whatever. Sprites, sounds, coding and all that stuff, except for maps and music, are already done. Like I said before, there are many level specific codings that are obviously yet to be done.

We didn't decide yet how many levels the game will have yet. We are just going on with the story, until it is the right time to end. I also think it is worth mentioning the maps are all 128x128. We always thought it was bad to have so many small claustrophobic rooms, but that was the only way to make big nice levels.

Obviously, I'm not spoiling much yet, but I can guarantee the game has a bunch of never seen before features.

After that wall of text, here are a bunch of screens, to show something that has been made already. I'll post more screens from time to time in here.

Official Beta Screenshots (latest released version as of now):

Shadow Genesis Part 1 Beta Download: (The forum inserts this adfly thing on the link. I can't do anything about that, so don't complain.)As bugs are found and fixed, I'll upload new patches here. You should download them as soon as possible. I'll also write what the bug is about.

Important things before you download this:

You can press 'L' to see the ratios so far in the game.

The game is incomplete. What you will download is a demo version, which corresponds to the first part of a two part game. This part contains 39 levels. Whenever the full version is released, you WILL lose your savegame.

It's probably best not to play this on "I am Death Incarnate" unless you want some big suffering.

WolferCooker succeeded in completing the game, but that doesn't mean there are no bugs. In fact, I can almost guarantee there are.

If you get stuck somewhere and you feel like there is a bug that prevents you from completing it, it's better if you post it here so everyone can see it, and we can fix it if it's really a bug. If it's not a bug, I won't spoil anything and I won't give you the solution.

There are no secret levels for now, although some "mechanisms" that would enable you to get to them are already in the game. That means there can be keys/switches/things that have no objective the way the game is now.

Although this should be obvious, READ the ReadThis section.

Achievements and mementos aren't in the game yet, even though the ReadThis describe them. Don't mind that, for now.

Full package (this has been updated and now links to the official beta version): http://www.mediafire.com/file/nnzijaw3aaehu13/Shadow_Genesis_Pt._1_-_Official_Beta.rar

Patches (no need to download any of them anymore. All of the patches have been included in the official beta version. The list of patches has been kept here purely as a log).

:

Patch 001

Spoiler:

Bug fix: you won't actually get the flamethrower even if you pick it up

Patch 002

Spoiler:

Bug fix: weapons not correctly assigned to the respective buttons

Bug fix: level 7 Book of Dead freezes the game

Bug fix: level 9 eletronically locked door won't open

Patch 003

Spoiler:

Bug fix: level 20 mixing puzzle's secret tiles disappearing after the first pushwall was moved

Patch 004

Spoiler:

Bug fix: missing floor codes on the mixing puzzle area on level 20 causing secret tiles to disappear upon loading the game

Patch 005

Spoiler:

Bug fix: holy crosses being carried to the next level

Bug fix: grayish objects after leaving the smoky room on level 10

Patch 006

Spoiler:

Bug fix: secret weapon fix

This is the same map files from Patch 004. I've let it here since Patch 006 patches the executable, not the maps. If you downloaded the maps from Patch 004, there's no need to download it again.

Patch 007

Spoiler:

Bug fix: Snake's behavior has been altered (hopefully for better)

Patch 008

Spoiler:

Bug fix: Snake's behavior has been altered again

Bug fix: Level 25 message problem

Patch 009

Spoiler:

Bug fix: Removed unused event triggers from level 30

Official Beta Version

Spoiler:

This is the official beta version with all the previously released patches included. There's no need to download anything else besides the official beta.

As of this release, there will be no further updates and/or bug fixes in the beta version. If any problem comes up, it will only be fixed on the release of the final full version of the game.

I don't know if this is a glitch in-game, but when I picked up the skull staff ammo, my staff didn't increase in ammo (maybe there is another stave possibly?)... Then when my staff runs lower on ammo, it slowly increments overtime. Finally, when having the staff out, time freezes or at least moves extremely slow, like 1 second = 10-15 IRL seconds, then also events in the game either freeze or executes in the next tick.

Another glitch that occurs in the Snake level (lv 37), is where Snake automatically stops moving and becomes an object where you can just walk over rather than a solid actor. He also doesn't really respond to the commands given when he gets glitched out like that.

Currently finishing up level 38 and then moving towards the final level in the beta.

Last edited by Milanor on Mon Jul 04, 2016 11:16 pm; edited 1 time in total

I've cleared level 38, and it was quite a challenging, but yet good level, though there is one part where the enemy spawns infinitely from stepping past a certain row, and that part is quite hectic. I tried to take things one at a time and clear a path through, though fighting in close quarters and limited movement while dealing with boss-like enemies, that's hellish. I've saved my invincibility artifact for that moment. All the other shadow trials (don't want to go into too much detail here) ok, though it is a tough level. I will want to say thanks to Mario for allowing a save (event based) when collecting a key.

Speaking of keys, there is a red key door though I did find two additional keys (neither are the red keys) in optional (non-secret) areas. So I'm not sure if I missed something or a design error? Plus, I think there is an area that I cannot revisit after doing an event.

So I'll let Mario comment on this whenever he is on. Right now I'm going to tackle the final level of this beta, level 39.

I wonder if it was that obvious I made level 38. The keys you found are used for the doors. If you had found the red key, you would also have found the other keys ' locked doors behind the red key one. Well I'm going by what you told me. I don't remember which door comes first.If you fought all the creatures you said, you did it wrong. I forgot now, but it's possible go thru that and return by summoning monsters only twice. Of course, if you completed the raids challenge first, you will have a lot of ammo to use there. And yea, the area where you fight the dark cardinal will remain closed after you go there.

I've just beat the game, on Bring 'Em On difficulty! I have to say, it is quite amazing and wow the last boss fight was long, but was still a bit more generous than that one fight I had with Dark Inquisitor (probably due to the amount of space to move around and no other minions around thankfully. Then again his attacks are nothing to sneeze at because they can easily destroy BJ should there be a small mistake or so. Also due to the long phase of the fight, and no saving in between phases and transitions is what makes it challenging as well too.). I did wonder, why did the game crash afterwards and not have an endgame statistic? I was curious to see level 40 but I guess it is not available.

I do still plan to revisit various parts of the game and try to find other ways around it or unlock some more secrets as I do have questions in regards to it. Maybe I might find some more (undiscovered) glitches, bugs, or anormalities throughout the game and then let you guys know.

Anyways, I plan to write a review which will have my thoughts, suggestions, and constructive criticisms on the game itself (it's unlikely to be public due to spoilers unless you would ok it.) and I will probably send you the doc file once I'm done.

Hmm, level 40 is not supposed to crash the game. Actually, the game should be ended as soon as you started level 40. That map is actually not the one you should play after level 39, since that is actually a secret level. We just let it there because the game would end anyway, so...

I seriously hope you find more bugs so that we can have an (almost) bug-free final version later. I look forward to seeing your review, but yeah, ideally we wouldn't want to spoil too much, since there are decisions you make throughout the game that can change other parts later, and it would kind of ruin the fun. Receiving some feedback is the coolest part of releasing a game.

I would ask about the skull staff abnormality, is it intended to recharge over time (very slowly), or does it not accept skull staff ammo (I picked it up in earlier levels but the ammo didn't increase). Also, I've noticed that it stops time (or slows it to about 1/10th-1/15th of a second in real life time) and events as well, so was that the function of the skull staff?

Also, you don't need to answer this, but I don't know if there are other weapons I didn't pick up but keybinds 7,8,9, and 10 only have one weapon. I'm sure there might be another one but missed it during the playthrough?

Ah, it took me some time to understand what's happening. You're right, that staff does recharge slowly, but there is no ammo for it. The thing is, that staff is not the "skull staff" for which you picked up the ammo. Skull staff is another staff, which you most likely didn't find, I suppose. I'm pretty sure when you picked up that staff there was a message "Rubbish", which is because we never decided how to name that weapon , but all you have to know for now is that it is not the skull staff.

As for slowing down time, I really have no idea why that happened, that was not intended at all, nor does it happens here. You probably noticed that weapon fires two different types of projectiles. Did you notice if that happens on both of them?

Not all of those buttons have more than one weapon, but I'm sure you never found some secret weapons.

Ah yes, there is one projectile that does rebounds a couple of times after hitting a wall or passing through an enemy, and there is another projectile that just goes like a normal one.

As far as the secret weapons, you are correct that I haven't found all of them yet, and I will try to look for the skull staff as well as other ones (if there are any more). Perhaps having those other weaponry could have made my hard difficulty run a bit smoother.

Edit: I just found a bug where you don't take damage from a corrupted cacodemon after a certain point in level 37. I think it has something to do with Snake's behavior, not sure. Usually when you are within a few squares of the C. Caco, you take 1% damage every few ticks or so, and 1% damage being 1-2 squares away for every 2 seconds or so when the C. Caco is dead. The bug seems to temporarily disappear in level 38 when I took the sparking orb or something.

Also, whenever part 2 is finished, will there be a BETA version for it? I want to make sure that is also as bug free as possible and that 100% ratios in kills, secrets, and treasure are done. I may attempt it on the Bring 'Em On for the BETA (or Don't Hurt Me. difficulty) just to test it out.

Yeah, there are two projectiles. Do both of them cause the time to "slow down"?

Hmm, interesting thing on the corrupted cacodemon damage. I'll take a look on the routines that damage you to see if there's any problem, although I think it is very odd for that routine to be affected by Snake.

I'm not really sure about having a Beta for part 2, can't really decide that right now. This time, we didn't play the game ourselves, and I suspect that if we had we would have avoided quite a lot of bugs. But we shall see what happens when we get closer to finishing it

I've fought the final boss again and this time, it looks like I did manage to get to the end game screen and the highscores as well. Plus, the ratios look even better than before! I think my first time the game crashed probably due to some other reason (I can't reproduce it though.)

I wonder whats with the 89% treasure? Oh well, at least I gotten 100% kills and secrets.

Congrats on beating it in the actual normal mode Milanor, but you still have plenty to discover in this game. Keep playing it and maybe you'll get lucky on getting your hands on a few weapons dropped by enemies.

Oh I should've mentioned to you, did you notice the Soul Tormentor weapon in the final area you warp to after defeating Xaphan? (The EoD final boss) VERY useful weapon down the road.

Oh are you referring to the weapon that has two different projectiles when fired, one is a normal one while the other shot type is a ball that ricochets off walls/objects and passes through enemies? Also, it regenerates ammo (slowly) over time. If that is the one you are referring to, then yes I would have that weapon.

Speaking of other discoveries, I'm still trying to discover the Skull Staff (missed it earlier in the game), as well as other secret weapons (if there are), as I believe my life would have been easier with those weaponry.

Michael-John, are you a man without any sign of patience? Everytime you ask Mario and Luigi for the release date, and you're doing it often, it's the same that you annoying them. LEAVE THEM ALONE!

And by the way, didn't Mario tell you to stay away from this thread? Didn't you take my warnings and advice very clearly? Well, that confirms us that you've forget everything we spoke to you within few months. How shameful!

@brickgolem wrote:Michael-John, are you a man without any sign of patience? Everytime you ask Mario and Luigi for the release date, and you're doing it often, it's the same that you annoying them. LEAVE THEM ALONE!

And by the way, didn't Mario tell you to stay away from this thread? Didn't you take my warnings and advice very clearly? Well, that confirms us that you've forget everything we spoke to you within few months. How shameful!

Officer-Michael John, I had heard that they spent 7 years working on this version of Shadow Genesis. It's none of our business when they release the full version. People have work & personal lives.

Michael John, you strike me as somebody childish who will regret he's spent so much time on video games as he gets older. Stay away from this thread.

@brickgolem wrote:Michael-John, are you a man without any sign of patience? Everytime you ask Mario and Luigi for the release date, and you're doing it often, it's the same that you annoying them. LEAVE THEM ALONE!

And by the way, didn't Mario tell you to stay away from this thread? Didn't you take my warnings and advice very clearly? Well, that confirms us that you've forget everything we spoke to you within few months. How shameful!

Officer-Michael John, I had heard that they spent 7 years working on this version of Shadow Genesis. It's none of our business when they release the full version. People have work & personal lives.

Michael John, you strike me as somebody childish who will regret he's spent so much time on video games as he gets older. Stay away from this thread.

I only asked. You know,that I can not wait for good things. Then I ask me to it when the my mods. It does not bother me. Soon I release from old cross-over mod update version (Project Wolfenstein 3D:New Year's Eve). I do not want to quarrel with anyone. That is not my goal.

@brickgolem wrote:Michael-John, are you a man without any sign of patience? Everytime you ask Mario and Luigi for the release date, and you're doing it often, it's the same that you annoying them. LEAVE THEM ALONE!

And by the way, didn't Mario tell you to stay away from this thread? Didn't you take my warnings and advice very clearly? Well, that confirms us that you've forget everything we spoke to you within few months. How shameful!

Officer-Michael John, I had heard that they spent 7 years working on this version of Shadow Genesis. It's none of our business when they release the full version. People have work & personal lives.

Michael John, you strike me as somebody childish who will regret he's spent so much time on video games as he gets older. Stay away from this thread.

I only asked. You know,that I can not wait for good things. Then I ask me to it when the my mods. It does not bother me. Soon I release from old cross-over mod update version (Project Wolfenstein 3D:New Year's Eve). I do not want to quarrel with anyone. That is not my goal.

I'm worried that you'll plaigiarize. Project Wolfenstein 3D: New Year’s Eve should not have plaigiarized resources.

Hey guys, we have made a second teaser video, also about the same levels from the beta. For you who played to the end, there's nothing really new here, except some changes we made to the levels with higher walls.

We made this because we said in the beta the game features demons. However, that's one of the things we paid almost no attention while making the first video. So, just to avoid people feeling tricked or something like that, we are showing now a bit more.

As said in the description, we had a major slowdown while making levels because we had to implement several things before we could continue making the second half. But we're doing it.

As soon as I get to talk to Luigi, I'll tell him to put this in the first post too.

I wacthed Teaser 2 video and will be good. I like High wall as Doom. I tryed this function,but not will be good. For you good Mario Maniac,that you know better coding as Me. I learn coding. I know adding the some tips what good for you and Mega Luigi as coding changes. And I not like problem.

Mario and Luigi, you've showed me and all of us (wolfers) that everything's possible of making mods like this. I've been aware that the double-stacked walls definitely will bring this game into a new dimension. And IT DID. I'm pretty sure that this feature will be a milestone and next step to upcoming mods in the future.

Based from the latest teaser, now it feels more Doomish and Hexenish. Especially the atmosphere, fortresses, castles and house feels more organic, real and epic. And monsters like Cyberdemon and Dark Inquisitor will fit perfectly together, since the height is 128 pixels high than 64 pixels.

Overall, it's astonishing.

But I wonder one thing; will it be possible to add sprites wider than 64 pixels in this game? I guess that monstrosities like Spider Mastermind is perfectly fitted on outer areas.

@brickgolem: Heh, glad it worked in the end (although there seems to be no end to this feature, as I keep having to fix small bugs all the time ). Although earlier levels can't be revamped that much for the sake of realism. I mean, we don't have much freedom with different heights considering you're supposed to be going up in a castle. As for the size of the monsters, most of them don't need to be rescaled that much to fit in Wolf's sprites (we already use 128x128 sprites, by the way), but specifically Spider Mastermind is a bit too big for that. Not that we can't do it, we can always scale the sprite down (to fit in a 128x128 bmp) and then scale it up in the game, but of course that means it loses quality to a degree. I had already thought of coding a way to externally load some predetermined larger sprites, but never really worked on that. I fear it could be more time consuming than it seems to be. Still, it's an idea to be considered.

@WolferCooker: It's interesting, when I made the first room with higher walls, it was quite noticeable how much better things looked like.

The second teaser is also already on the first page. I spent the day trying to access the forum, which seemed to be offline for some reason, only to discover that somehow it was my computer's fault, as that only happened in that specific pc. Cool, huh!?

Last edited by Mega Luigi on Fri Sep 23, 2016 8:50 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : It seems I thought of something and wrote another :)))

Woot, this is awesome, I'll probably run through the game once more to experience the changes made in the levels, it'll be interesting for sure. This time, I may go for easy difficulty in order to save my sanity and due to time constraints (I'm studying at uni and I only have so much time). Hopefully, this time I would be able to get through the game and unveil some other secrets that I didn't get in the first playthrough.

You tellin' me. I've seen rescaled walls in some Wolf3d mods under the Doom engine, but I NEVER thought they could be rescaled and stacked upon each other within the Wolf3d engine itself. It's a darn shame the Wolf3d engine was never meant to handle other features such as actual stairs/ramps/hills.

You tellin' me. I've seen rescaled walls in some Wolf3d mods under the Doom engine, but I NEVER thought they could be rescaled and stacked upon each other within the Wolf3d engine itself. It's a darn shame the Wolf3d engine was never meant to handle other features such as actual stairs/ramps/hills.

I agree with WolferCooker. It is not intended to Wolf 3D engine,that use Doom engine or Duke Nukem 3D engine. I like this function. But in Doom is better as in Wolf 3D High wall function. Not bad I said.

Speaking of double stacked walls, now the environment looks so high enough that it fit not only to big enemies like Cyberdemon, but also flying units. Which you approach them, they start moving on heights and lower near the ground during the fight. Helicopters is an example which is perfectly suited for this.

@WolferCooker: yeah, it's something quite unnatural to think about considering Wolf engine. Still, after SDL was released, I dare to say that most, if not all, technical limitations come from the editors, and not from the engine itself. It's at times like these that I wish there was an open source editor around.

@brickgolem: If you come up with an enemy that uses the sort of strategies you mentioned, we could definitely use it somehow. Just tossing an idea out there.

Edit: just spoke with Mario, we are quite interested in doing something like that, it's an awesome idea, actually. Like I said, don't take this as a request, but if you get inspired to come up with something, we will be happy to use it

Sorry for the late answer, I have been away from those forums for some time due to real life issues.This error in level 1 was my mistake. I wanted to grant an achievement in case you survived that ambush, but since we decided to only do those achievements after the game was finished, I left that the way it was without making the proper adjustments.

By the way, Milanor completed the game in "Bring'em On", but he suffered quite a little. We tried to get things working before balancing the enemies, health and ammo. That's why we advice to play in one of the first two difficulties.

Thanks Mario. When I get more time I will be revisiting parts of the mod (albeit a lower difficulty to save some time), and try to discover new things as well as finding the weapons that I never found on my first run though.

Btw, I've been thinking about someone doing a LP on the game sometime in the future, but based on certain parts, it just seems like a hassle to record, like reload save reload save, die rinse repeat, I guess there must be some way someone could record a very long level (took me well over 2 hours on some levels), with all the challenges and not end up dying or missing out stuff/messing up a lot. I just know if I tried to play a challenging wolf3d mod, it's pretty much like reload save reload save, die a lot, reload after a few seconds, well... you get the idea, it would probably be hard to watch.. (Recalls level 28, level 37, and parts of level 18, but I don't want to spoil it too much here.) I suppose someone could record it by adding some memes or little transitions to make it smooth or something. (I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent here, so I'll create a topic in the help desk forum regarding recording and gameplay since it's something I haven't found a lot of feedback on.)

If I were to record it, I'd would record certain pieces of the level and then assemble all of them at the end. For example, you record the level to the point you find a locked door. Keep recording until you get the key, then stop recording, and restart it after you arrive the door again. Doing things like this would save time.In cases of death, you can record, and if you die, you just delete that video and keep recording it until you succeed. It's a pretty lame tactic, but it works. Either that or you can put small tags during your video saying "click here to skip this self-slaughter part", something like that.

EDIT: Forgot to say, if you decide to do this, feel free to record anything. Don't feel like you shouldn't record it because it will spoil something. As I mentioned before, as long as the spoil is not directly in this thread, it's okay, because here it may take people by surprise and ruin something. But if they decide "I want spoil, I will watch on youtube", that's their choice.